Yoga and ME CFS

Today I am feeling very pleased with myself.  Once a week I attend a yoga class at a therapy centre.   It's  a very gentle 45 minute class where all the poses are either lying down or seated.  I've been coping pretty well with the class so today I tried a normal yoga class.  It was about one hour, fifteen minutes long and with my usual yoga teacher who knows me pretty well by now.  I smiled my way through the whole class, I was so pleased to be joining in and managing so well.  There were things I couldn't do and things I chose not to do as I thought they would be too much for my system, but there was lots that I could do and I really enjoyed it.  At the end of the class both my teacher and I were so surprised by how much I had managed.  Now I have to wait until tomorrow or Thursday to see how my body reacts.
There were two reasons for wanting to try an extra yoga class, firstly, I just want to do some exercise and yoga is about all I can manage right now.  Secondly, I have been finding out more about how people have improved their Orthostatic intolerance by being able to exercise.  This is obviously difficult for someone with ME, but every tiny little increase I can make will help.

Meditation retreat and night tremors

I've been a little remiss when it comes to blogging lately, but today I feel it necessary to put fingers to keyboard to document that on Tuesday night I had one of those horrible night time tremors.  I can't remember the last time this happened - which is a good thing, it was obviously a long time ago.  These occurrences were common at the start of my illness.  I would go to bed and then wake up at about 1am ish with my heart racing, feeling hot and clammy but with cold extremities  and an urge to empty my bladder and bowel, once I've done that and gone back to bed my body starts to tremble uncontrollably, sometimes in very noticeable waves.  When it passes it's like my body is released from something's grasp and relaxes, but then I cannot sleep.  The next morning my body is weak.  And so it was on Tuesday night.  I got up just thinking I needed the bathroom, but noticed my heart racing like mad.  When I got into bed I just recognized all the signs and knew what was coming.  This was upsetting as it hadn't happened for so long that I thought I had got over this sort of reaction altogether.  I tried to control my breathing to see if that would stave it off, but eventually I just tried to relax into it and let it happen and take it's course.  Ant was fab (again) he is very familiar with this scenario and knows just what to do, holding me firmly as I shake.  Last night it was just the bottom half of my body and built up very slowly from almost externally unnoticeable tremors which gradually grew in strength and then, when it had done what it needed, it abated and was gone.
The cause of this little hiccup is unproven, but my best suspicion is that I jarred my body when moving very quickly and suddenly to avoid a plastic cricket ball that was heading towards me at speed.  I think that the sudden burst of movement involved upset my system somehow.  Anyway, I woke up very weak yesterday and forced myself to go off to the therapy center for my regular yoga session.  The session felt good, but the drive there and back was very hard work.  I was in bed by 5.30pm and slept much better last night.  Today I felt a bit better when I woke but have had to be very careful with my activity and minimize as much as possible.

Since my last blog post, I've had a lovely few weeks.  Sadly the boost in energy that was mentioned in my previous posts has not hung around.  It lasted 3 weeks and two days and gave me a real glimpse of how things could be.  The most annoying thing of all is that I have no idea what caused that little energetic boost.   I'm still doing all the same things now as I was doing then, but don't have the same levels of energy.  I'm back to my 5000 comfortable steps a day.

At the end of June I attended a 6 day meditation retreat at The Barn in Totnes, Devon. It was so rejuvenating - not physically, but mentally and emotionally.  I found it a very valuable experience.  Two hours meditation a day broken into three 40 minute sessions, visiting speakers, lots of reading from a well stocked library, good food and some therapeutic gardening tasks.  I really enjoyed it and although I felt guilty taking myself off there for a week and leaving the family at home, I have now convinced myself that sometimes we do just need to prioritize time to nurture ourselves.  Strangely, since I got back my meditation practice hasn't been as good as before I went on retreat!